Mi Casita!

When you first walk into my house, you see this.
The two neighbor girls, Milkely and Hilary, they helped me move.
my kitchen, behind the flower wall in the first picture.
The backdoor, leading out from my bedroom.
My bed and mosquito net.
The people who "helped" me clean my house...in actuality, they did everything and I stood there.  They are Mirta (Milkely's mom), Luz (my host mom), and Chulino (one of my project partner's sons)

I have finally moved into my little house.  It's actually a part of another house with a wall down the middle.  It took forever to move because I had to install electricty and fix a bunch of stuff, windows, locks, and the bathroom door.  I share an outside bathroom with the neighbors, which isn't a problem, it was a problem though when the door wouldn't shut, I didn't like the idea of my neighbors walking in on me showering.  All is fixed now and I have moved all my stuff (although its not all put away) and I will sleep there for the first time tonight!  My neighbors are all great people, I live in the teacher/professionals neighborhood.  My immediate neighbors (the ones on the other side of the wall) are both university graduates and one is a teacher, the mom stays at home and takes care of their 8 month old son.  They have internet which will be good in case I need to do something quick and don't want to walk to my host family's house.  I am definitely spoiled.  On the other side is a colmado (which is like a convenience store, kind of) so I barely have to open my door to get food (I really don't even have to open my door because my window opens to the back of their store, so I could just tell them from the window what I want).

I was just about done with the ecotourism grant proposal when I went in to see one of our advisors about the budget.  She looks and the budget and says, "This looks very familiar, I think I'm doing the same thing you are."  Turns out we were both filling out the SAME grant and didn't know it!  It was both a good and bad thing.  Good because we put ours together and got the best of both, bad because we both would have saved time had we been working on it together.  At least now we can turn it in and have a good shot at actually getting the money.

I am going to the capital the 12th and 13th to get my green card, which is a stupid process and I'm mad I even have to go (I have to go to sign the paper, that's it) but I can check my mail and hopefully some of the medical supplies will be there.  I have had such great support with that project from my mom and that has really put me in the good graces of the community.  The next step is to continue working with the government to get full time doctors and nurses (they found us another doctor, but I guess she doesn't like it and wants to leave.  The other issue is that there are trained nurses that LIVE in our community but have to travel every day to the city to work, it would be great if the government would pay them to work here, we don't have one single nurse).  The other step is finding someone to get us an inversor.  That is a type of power generator and we need that because the power here is only on about 50% of the time.